


my lips to your ear (draw out the poison there)

by Pfeffermouse



Series: measure our time by the movement of shadows [3]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The Setas’ A+ Parenting, and add some extra just for you, implied Amagis’ A+ parenting for that matter, they fill you with the faults they had, they fuck you up your mum and dad, they may not mean to but they do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27749518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pfeffermouse/pseuds/Pfeffermouse
Summary: Souji has fully recovered from facing his Shadow and is back to normal – which is to say, stretching himself entirely too thin trying to make everyone happy. Old habits and ways of thinking are hard to break, but luckily Yosuke’s there to knock some sense into him – with a little help from Yukiko.
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Persona 4 Protagonist, Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji
Series: measure our time by the movement of shadows [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776169
Comments: 22
Kudos: 107





	my lips to your ear (draw out the poison there)

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing to declare this time, except that some of the tags are courtesy of Philip Larkin.

Souji may have been the best cook that Yosuke had ever – seen? That didn’t sound right. Tasted, mayb – _SEEN seen seen seen oh my God that’s not what I meant –_

Look. The point was, no matter how great a cook Souji was, there were some flavors that just did not go together, and tonkatsu sauce and guilt were pretty high on that list.

“Partner, this tonkatsu is amazing!” Yosuke exclaimed anyway – loudly, a little too loudly for the classroom, but there were a dozen other lunchtime conversations going on, so whatever – both because it was polite and because it was, you know, _true_. It wasn’t Souji’s fault that Yosuke’s tastebuds were buried under a layer of ash.

Well, actually, it kind of _was_. “You’re gonna spoil us if you keep making us lunches like this,” Yosuke continued, with a grin that he didn’t quite feel. “Seriously, how long did it take you to make all this?” Yosuke usually couldn’t be bothered to make lunch for himself, much less enough for seven people.

“It’s actually a pretty fast recipe, and it’s easy to scale up,” Souji commented as he stacked four more bento boxes on his desk and began re-packing his bag with all the books and papers he’d had to take out to get at the bento boxes. “But I’m glad you like it. I was thinking of making it for Nanako and Dojima-san this weekend if it turned out well.”

And even now, after everything, Yosuke couldn’t bring himself to press the point. “So you needed some guinea pigs, huh?” he shot back even as his stomach sank a little, giving Souji a wink to show he was teasing. “I see how it is.”

“Are you complaining?” Souji asked, looking up from his bag just long enough to raise an eyebrow at Yosuke.

“Well, _I’m_ not,” Chie said fervently, if somewhat unintelligibly, given the speed with which she was shoveling the tonkatsu into her mouth. “Any time you need a guinea pig, I am on it. Although….” Chie swallowed and looked up, face uncertain. “Is it really okay for you to be making us lunch every day like you have been lately? Don’t get me wrong, your cooking is the _best_ – like, the _best_ the best – but I feel kinda bad. It’s okay if you don’t have time or something, you know.”

“It’s no trouble,” Souji assured her as he packed the last of his books back in his bag and sat up, curving his back in a leisurely stretch as he did so. Yosuke quickly returned his attention to his food. Why was it so _stuffy_ in the classroom? Yosuke felt like he could barely breathe. “When I was recovering, Nanako decided that feeding me up was the best way to help me get my strength back, so she’s been buying way more groceries than the three of us can possibly eat. It would be a shame to let it go to waste, so I thought I might as well get in some cooking practice.”

“You certainly don’t need any practice,” Yukiko said, and Yosuke looked back up to see her giving Souji a warm smile. “I can’t imagine cooking this well, although I’d love to learn. Oh!” she gasped suddenly. “Does that mean I should start calling you ‘Sensei’ too?” Yukiko could barely get the last few words out as she tried to contain her laughter, and Yosuke and Chie exchanged a glance.

“Here we go,” Chie muttered, and Yosuke just sighed.

“Please don’t,” Souji said flatly, and the dam broke on Yukiko’s laughter. Souji just shook his head, but he was smiling. “Anyway, I need to take these to Kanji, Rise, and Naoto,” he said over Yukiko’s cackling as he stood up and grabbed the four bentos still on his desk. “I’ll see you after lunch.”

Yosuke shook his head too as Souji disappeared out the classroom door, and he _wasn’t_ smiling. “Refresh my memory. Did I just imagine the part where he agreed to stop hurting himself to make other people happy?”

“I mean… making us all lunch every day isn’t exactly the same as letting some creepy nurse hit on him,” Chie said dubiously as Yukiko’s laughter died away. “It is kinda weird, though.”

Yosuke slumped in his seat, tilting his head back so he could stare up at the ceiling and avoid any inconvenient eye contact. “You know what his schedule’s like – he’s gotta be staying up half the night to make all this. Plus the ingredients – even if it _was_ Nanako-chan’s idea, there’s no way Dojima-san would be okay with just suddenly buying enough food to make lunch for ten people instead of three. Souji’s gotta be picking up extra shifts to pay for it.”

Chie groaned, accompanied by a clattering that sounded as if she’d pushed her empty bento box aside. “Do you think he’s worried about that bond stuff he was talking about?” she asked after a few moments. Her voice was muffled, and Yosuke was pretty sure she was face-down on her desk. She’d had the right idea; Yosuke was already starting to get a crick in his neck. “I mean… I didn’t really understand most of what he was saying about it, but…”

Yosuke winced, then reached up to rub at his neck to try and pass it off as a twinge. Leave it to Chie to kick the elephant in the room. It was that idea more than anything that turned Souji’s food to ash in Yosuke’s mouth. Surely after all this time – after everything they’d been through together – Souji couldn’t think he needed to buy their friendship with favors, could he…?

Yosuke let his hand fall back to his desk. It brushed against the bento box, and Yosuke grimaced as the tonkatsu turned over in his stomach.

“I don’t… think that’s it,” Yukiko said hesitantly, and there was something in her voice that had Yosuke jerking back upright (too fast – _shit_ , that hurt) as Chie shot up from her sprawl.

“What do you mean?” Chie asked.

Yukiko fussed a little with her bento box; Yosuke wasn’t sure what exactly she was supposed to be doing with it, but it apparently required her full attention. “If I had to say… I think Souji-kun is embarrassed and wants to apologize,” she said, finally.

“Wait, really?” Chie asked, wrinkling her nose a little as she evidently tried to connect the dots and failed. “I mean, yeah, he was definitely kinda embarrassed the first time we went to see him in the hospital after everything, but… He’s seemed pretty normal since then? Aside from pushing himself even more than usual, anyway.”

“Besides, his Shadow wasn’t even all that embarrassing,” Yosuke added, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on the desk as he clutched his neck with both hands, as though he could retroactively prevent whatever debilitating spinal damage he’d just inflicted on himself. “Absolutely terrifying, sure. Embarrassing? Nah. Especially not compared to… some of them.”

“I don’t think he’s embarrassed about his Shadow,” Yukiko corrected. “Well, not exactly. What I mean is…” She paused for a moment, evidently thinking it over, and when she continued, she sounded as though she were choosing her words carefully. “Souji-kun is a very responsible person, and he always tries so hard not to inconvenience others. I think he might be embarrassed about having caused us so much trouble.”

The wave of indignation that crashed through Yosuke washed away all thoughts of potential paralysis. “It wasn’t _inconvenient_ to save him!” he snapped, dropping his hands and sitting up straight.

“Yeah!” Chie added, kicking the leg of her desk emphatically. “He’s our _friend_ , and anyway, he saved us first!”

“Well, it _was_ inconvenient,” Yukiko said, so matter-of-factly that it derailed Yosuke’s train of thought entirely. He stared at Yukiko, brain frantically trying to process the shift, as Yukiko continued. “Chie, your parents yelled at you for staying out late too many nights in a row, and they would have grounded you if we hadn’t been able to convince them you were helping out at the inn. Teddie forgot about a shift, and Yosuke, you had to write that apology letter, remember?”

Oh yes, Yosuke remembered. _Stupid bear._

“Plus your father noticed all those shifts you traded and was asking questions,” Yukiko pressed, relentlessly. “You had to convince him that you were failing a class and needed remedial lessons, and you said he got very quiet, like he was disappointed in you but didn’t want to say so.”

Yeah, okay, that one had hurt – more than he’d expected it to, actually. But what other choice did he have? His dad would live, but Souji…

“It’s not as though my absence went unnoticed either,” Yukiko said. “The inn employees still haven’t stopped teasing me about my secret boyfriend – ” her cheeks flushed almost as red as her cardigan, but she plowed on – “and I really _did_ fail a pop quiz in history because I hadn’t done the reading. I’ve _never_ done that. Kanji-kun said that his mother thought he was getting into trouble again, and Rise-chan said that her grandmother is angry with her because she’s hardly helped out at the store lately, between Naoto-kun and Souji-kun. For that matter, I don’t think Naoto-kun slept in an actual bed once while Souji-kun was missing, with all that research she was doing. And that’s not even taking into account how we _felt_ the whole time – how _scared_ we all were…. And none of it would have happened if Souji-kun had just been honest with himself.”

Yukiko paused. When neither of them said anything, she continued, “It’s precisely _because_ Souji-kun saved us all first that he knows exactly how much trouble he put us to. There’s no point sugarcoating it. If anything, it’s disrespectful to Souji-kun’s intelligence to pretend otherwise.” Yukiko folded her hands primly in her lap and straightened up a little, eyeing them both as though daring them to argue.

Yosuke certainly didn’t, mostly because he was busy having a lot of really uncomfortable thoughts that had never occurred to him before, like how Yukiko was _also_ a really responsible person who hated causing trouble for others, and how she may not have known what a rescue was like until after she helped save Kanji, but she sure knew _now_ , and how he might have been disrespecting her intelligence a little, all this time. Yosuke glanced at Chie out of the corner of his eye, and judging from her gutted expression, she was thinking pretty much the same thing.

“Yukiko…” Chie said, a wobbly note in her voice, and Yosuke jumped in before this could turn into the kind of scene that didn’t need witnesses.

“Okay, fine, maybe it _was_ a little inconvenient,” Yosuke admitted, letting himself fall back against his seat’s backrest with a huff. “But so what? It was _Souji_.”

“Y-yeah,” Chie faltered, her eyes still glued to Yukiko’s tense form. “We… we didn’t mind. None of that stuff _mattered._ ”

“I know,” Yukiko said, her posture relaxing almost imperceptibly, as though a blow she’d been expecting hadn’t come. “And I’m sure Souji-kun knows it too. But knowing it and feeling it are two separate things. So I think – if we want to help Souji-kun feel better, that’s what we need to keep in mind. That just because he knows it’s okay for him to put us out once in a while doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel awful about it.”

“Okay, but, like… how do we help with that?” Yosuke asked. He realized that he’d been staring at Yukiko almost as intently as Chie was, and he dropped his eyes to his desk, where his half-eaten bento was still sitting in front of him. The sight made his stomach twist uncomfortably, but Yosuke grabbed the bento anyway and began shoveling tonkatsu into his mouth. Hopefully it would make the atmosphere feel a little more like a normal lunchtime conversation and a little less like an interrogation.

When he chanced a glance up to see Yukiko’s expression, though, it was pretty clear _that_ tactic had failed at lightening things up. Yukiko’s eyes were downcast, and her mouth was tight. “I… don’t know,” she admitted, after a pause. She sat unmoving for a moment, her mind clearly elsewhere, then mechanically began to tidy up to go back to her own desk for class, putting the lid on her still mostly full bento and setting it aside. Her hair fell in a curtain as she bent down to collect her bag, hiding her face from view.

_Shit._ They must have hit more of a nerve than Yosuke’d realized. It was just that it had been so _long_ , and she’d never said or done anything to make them think she was still hung up on it… but then, she wouldn’t have, would she? Yosuke watched Yukiko for a moment, her movements graceful and controlled even now, with her mind a thousand miles – or six months – away and with no one but her friends to see. Sure, Yukiko knew she could trust them with her secrets and her life – they’d certainly proven _that_ beyond any sort of reasonable doubt – but… that didn’t cancel out the sixteen years she spent learning to appear reserved and serene, a perfect yamato nadeshiko to represent the inn. _Shit shit shit._

“Yukiko, I…” Chie started, but trailed off almost immediately. Yosuke could just see her hands balled into fists in her lap, shaking from some invisible effort. “You know that you’re – ”

“I know, Chie. Thank you,” Yukiko said, but her voice was as downcast as her gaze.

It wasn’t exactly the sort of response that left a lot of room for discussion, and the ensuing silence stretched out from awkward to painful. It was finally broken by a clattering near the front of the classroom that rose above the ambient lunchtime noise, and Yosuke looked up to see that the four girls who always pushed their desks together into a makeshift lunch table were shoving the desks back into their proper places. Yosuke swung around to look at the clock and winced. How had it gotten so late? Lunch was nearly over, and instead of figuring out what to do about Souji, they’d just ended up getting Yukiko depressed too. _And_ Chie, Yosuke amended, with a glance at the hunched figure staring forlornly at the top of Yukiko’s bent head. At this rate, _everyone_ was going to spend the afternoon miserable.

Yosuke cast around frantically and seized on the first thing he could think of. “Hey, Yukiko, you’re not gonna finish your homework before class?”

_That_ got a reaction out of her; Yukiko’s head jerked up, hair swishing around her. “Homework?” she asked, looking puzzled and faintly worried. “We didn’t have any homework for Mr. Hosoi’s class today, did we?”

“Not for Hosoi’s class – for your extra-curricular.” Yosuke reached out and tapped on the closed lid of Yukiko’s bento. “What’s your _sensei_ gonna think if he comes back to find out that you didn’t take the chance to study his technique?”

“Oh,” Yukiko said, the soft, sad tone in her voice abruptly replaced with a sort of surprised confusion. She stared down at the bento box as though she’d never seen it before.

“Yeah,” Yosuke said, warming to his topic. “Say, what’s his teaching style like, anyway? Does he take after Kashiwagi? Like – ” Yosuke quickly set his own bento box on the floor, undoing the top few buttons of his uniform jacket and hopping up to sit on his desk. He crossed his legs and leaned forward. “All right, class, today we’re going to practice making chocolates,” he said, in a truly terrible fake alto. “Anyone too shy to turn theirs in to me in front of the class can meet me on the roof at sunset – ”

“Oh my God, stop it!” Yukiko gasped as she erupted into full-blown hyena cackles. She smacked his shoulder in what Yosuke was fairly certain was supposed to be a friendly, oh-you-kidder sort of way, except that Yukiko was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked. Yosuke just barely managed not to wince as Yukiko sputtered. “You look – you look – so _ridiculous_!” she finally managed, before any further words were lost to her laughter.

The phrase “comic-relief sidekick” flashed through Yosuke’s mind, and this time he _did_ wince. He instinctively glanced around the classroom out of the corners of his eyes and – yeah, okay, there was _definitely_ some staring going on. Yosuke slid off his desk and into his seat like the desk was lava. Yosuke _wished_ ; at least then he could blame his burning face on that, rather than on having just thrown a bunch of fuel onto a fire that really, really did not need it. _Great going, Yosuke. Making an idiot out of yourself is totally going to get you accepted by the class. What were you thinking?_ Well, he hadn’t been, obviously; he’d been panicking about Yukiko and Chie. But still…

As he fumbled to get his jacket buttoned back up, Yosuke caught sight of Chie staring at him with a weird look on her face. Yosuke’d been expecting an eye-roll, maybe, a laugh if he was lucky, but instead Chie looked almost… contemplative? Yosuke didn’t see how _that_ could be right, though – for a variety of reasons – and the uncertainty made him sort of nervous, so he ended up just snapping “ _What?_ ”

It came out pissier than he’d meant it, and Yosuke braced himself for Chie’s indignation, which was usually quickly followed by Chie’s wrath, but Chie just looked at him for a few more seconds before she abruptly blinked and shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Just… I think I get it.”

Oooookay. “Get _what_?” Yosuke wanted to ask, but then the bell was ringing and everyone was hurrying back to their seats and Souji appeared in the doorway and started making his way back to them and Yosuke ended up shrugging it off as A Chie Thing – which was to say, inexplicable and with at least a 50 percent chance of coming back to kick him in the nads later, but that was a problem for Future Yosuke. Current Yosuke had enough problems of his own to worry about.

Although… The giggles and whispers that may or may not have been directed at him were annoying, sure, but Yukiko’s continued cackles and the genuine – if exasperated – good humor in Chie’s voice as she greeted Souji drowned them out more effectively than even Yosuke’s headphones did, and the sight of Souji’s familiar features lit up something inside Yosuke that was warmer than any other fire he might have accidentally stoked. When Souji looked Yosuke over and quietly asked, “Is everything okay?”, Yosuke surprised himself by how much he meant it when he answered, “Who, me? Never better.”

It didn’t seem worth it to add _What about you?_ when Yosuke already knew what Souji’s answer would be, but that didn’t stop Yosuke from thinking about it.

* * *

Yosuke continued to think about it all through his afternoon classes, and through his shift at Junes, and through his walk home after. He was thinking about it so hard that by the time his brain realized that he was on Souji’s doorstep rather than his own, his traitor body had already knocked on the door.

All in all, it was probably just as well that Yosuke only had a few seconds to scream internally before the door began to open and he had to restructure his expression into some semblance of “Hi, I am a completely normal teenager with a legitimate reason for knocking on your door at this hour on a school/work night, please don’t arrest me. Again.” For once in his life, though, Yosuke was in luck; the door opened to reveal Souji, carrying a dishcloth in one hand.

“Yosuke, hi,” Souji said, sounding as unflustered as if he’d, you know, actually _invited_ Yosuke instead of having Yosuke show up both completely unannounced and way too late for any sane person’s idea of a social call. Which was good, because Yosuke was flustered enough for the both of them. “Come on in,” Souji continued, disappearing back into the kitchen without waiting to see if Yosuke was following.

For a brief moment, Yosuke fantasized about manufacturing a sudden work emergency that required his presence right now immediately, sorry for the trouble, I’ll explain tomorrow morning, or maybe never, see ya later, partner – but there was no way Souji wouldn’t see through it, and Yosuke was pretty sure that the only thing more embarrassing than inviting himself over in the middle of the night would be letting Souji draw his own conclusions about why Yosuke had invited himself over in the middle of the night and – _anyway_.

Unfortunately, that meant that not only did Yosuke have to come up with a tactful way of being all “So, how’s that lingering trauma going for you?”, he had to do it fast. Yosuke was just pulling off his shoes and lining them up next to Souji and Nanako-chan’s (Dojima-san’s were missing, thankfully; he must still be at the station) when Souji called, “Did you need something?”

“Uh,” Yosuke said, and took longer than was strictly necessary to hang up his coat and find and pull on a pair of guest slippers.

He hadn’t had any brainwaves about how to broach the subject by the time he ran out of excuses for not joining Souji in the kitchen, but Souji must have read something into his silence, because when Yosuke finally slunk into the kitchen, Souji barely glanced up from where he was studying the contents of the refrigerator. “What do you think I should make for lunch tomorrow?” Souji asked, as though it were the most pressing question on his mind.

Yosuke was so busy being grateful for – and slightly jealous of – _Souji’s_ tact that it took a few seconds for him to realize that Souji had given him the opening he needed. “Cup ramen?” Yosuke suggested, a little less flippantly than he’d been aiming for.

Souji’s nose wrinkled. “That’s not very good for you,” he said with a hint of reproach, and Yosuke grinned despite himself. Friends waltzing in and out at all hours didn’t faze Souji a bit, but a nutritionally unbalanced lunch – God forbid.

“Partner, I have _never_ eaten as well as I have this last week or two,” Yosuke promised, leaning back against the counter next to the fridge. “I think we’ll survive a little extra sodium just this once. Besides, if you _don’t_ cook, we probably have time for a couple of rounds of Mario Kart before you get all responsible and throw me out.”

“Nanako bought all this beef, though…” Souji said as he pulled the package of meat out of the fridge. He glanced over at Yosuke – or more specifically, at the counter space that Yosuke had draped himself in front of. Yosuke just grinned and raised an eyebrow in challenge – only to yelp and jump away as Souji pressed the cold corner of the package against the warm skin of Yosuke’s inner elbow. 

“You fight dirty, dammit,” Yosuke accused, rubbing away the goosebumps as Souji calmly set the beef on the counter and closed the fridge door.

Souji hummed, clearly not listening. “Of course, I suppose I could just tell Chie that you weren’t in the mood for beef…”

Yosuke started to yelp “HEY!”, because there was fighting dirty and then there was straight-up human sacrifice, but then he remembered the tiny pink shoes next to Souji’s, and what Dojima-san would do to him if he found out that Yosuke had woken Nanako-chan up, and what _Souji_ would do to him if he woke Nanako-chan up. “Dude, don’t even joke about that!” he hissed once he was sure he had his voice under control, waving his arms to make up for the lack of volume. “I need all of my body parts in working order!”

“You can get by with only one kidney, actually,” Souji commented mildly as he opened a cabinet and pulled out a large mixing bowl. “And your appendix is entirely optional.”

“You. Are. Not. Helping!” Yosuke snapped, pointing an accusing finger at Souji and jerking it emphatically with each word.

There was a thoughtful pause that Yosuke was 95 percent certain was only for effect before Souji offered, “Your tailbone is largely vestigial?”

“Partner, you’re killing me here,” Yosuke groaned, slumping back against the sink dramatically.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to someone giving you a list of non-lethal options,” Souji objected, turning back to the fridge and opening it. His eyes were scrunched up just a little bit at the corners, and you know what, it was great that _one_ of them thought Souji was hilarious.

“Fine, _Chie’s_ killing me, and trying to turn it into assault and battery instead of murder does not make you any less of an accessory!” Yosuke sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Whatever, Chie and lunch are both problems for tomorrow. Come on, let’s go play a few rounds of Mario Kart or a fighting game or something. You’ll sleep better if you give yourself a chance to unwind a little first.”

“Nanako will be disappointed if she sees I didn’t use up the beef,” Souji noted, accompanied by a rattle of glass as he presumably perused the condiments. “Besides, everyone’s expecting me to bring lunch at this point, so they won’t have brought anything themselves. I’d hate to be responsible for letting Chie starve.”

“Message them,” Yosuke said promptly. “They’ll at least see it in time to grab some leftovers or bring some cash for the cafeteria or something. And for Nanako-chan…” Yosuke paused, thoughts racing – then, in a burst of inspiration, he said, “Tell you what, I’ll stop by Junes on the way to school tomorrow and pick you up the biggest bento they’ve got, and you can tell Nanako-chan all about it when you get home. You know she’d be thrilled!” he added, with a persuasiveness borne from years of being hassled to meet sales goals. “Come on, let me treat you for a change.”

“I really don’t mind making lunch, you know,” Souji commented as he emerged from the depths of the fridge with several bottles. He nudged the fridge door shut with his hip as he set the bottles on the counter next to the bowl.

“I know,” Yosuke said, and he could hear the edge bleeding into his voice despite his best efforts. God, Souji just _did not_ get it. “But I don’t mind picking up lunch for you either, and I _do_ mind you staying up half the night making lunch when I _know_ you had a study session with Kou and Daisuke after school, and a tutoring session with that one kid after that.”

Souji didn’t respond for what felt like a long time to Yosuke, who was practically shaking with his repressed irritation and impatience and worry. “I remember what I said before,” Souji finally said, his eyes fixed on the empty bowl waiting on the counter next to the condiments. “I’m not doing this to get stronger.”

Yosuke crossed his arms, burying his fingers in his biceps as he tried not to vibrate right out of his skin. “I know,” he snapped. “You’re doing it because you feel _guilty_ , and it’s really starting to piss me off. We’re your _friends_ , dammit! Don’t apologize for relying on us when you need to!”

Souji’s knuckles tightened where his fists were resting against the counter, a movement so slight that Yosuke wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been watching so closely for the least sign that he was getting through to Souji. “I really am grateful for your help, and even more for your _willingness_ to help,” Souji murmured. “It means more to me than I can tell you. But… I still hate that it was necessary. You shouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of my actions – or inactions. I knew better.”

That was the last straw for Yosuke’s fraying self-control; it broke with a snap that Yosuke could feel all through his body. “You know _what_?” he asked, a little too loudly, and Souji winced and glanced up the stairs toward Nanako-chan’s room. Quieter, but with no less heat, Yosuke continued, “I hate to break this to you, partner, but we’ve been dealing with the consequences of your goddamn actions all along. You rescued us, you fought for us, you saw all of us at our absolute lowest and didn’t judge any of us – you help me out at work any time I ask, even though you don’t even _work_ at Junes – you train with Chie and help Yukiko with her cooking and Kanji with his crafts and God only knows who else with what else – you stand up to bullies and remember everyone’s favorite foods and listen to our problems and never act like it _shouldn’t have been necessary_ even when it’s stupid petty stuff no one else struggles with – your actions made us all care about you _so much_ , so shut the hell up and deal with the consequences of that already!"

It was only the second time Yosuke had seen Souji shocked into speechlessness, but he enjoyed it even less this time around. God, Yosuke was an asshole. The worst part was, he couldn’t even apologize, not really, because he meant every damn word.

The seconds ticked by, the movement of the clock hands the only sound as Yosuke and Souji stared at each other. Yosuke had no idea what Souji was thinking; hell, he wasn’t even entirely sure what _he_ was thinking. He had no idea what his expression must look like – what Souji might be seeing – and the thought was enough for Yosuke to slump forward, letting his head hang down and hoping that his hair would be enough to hide… whatever it was. The movement just made him think of Yukiko, though, and the way her hair had fallen across her face as she silently collected her things. Yukiko and Souji had the same kind of reserve, the same poise, and for the first time it occurred to Yosuke to wonder where Souji had gotten it. 

After a moment, Yosuke sighed, instinctively shook out his shoulders as though he were getting ready for a fight, and raised his head. Souji was watching him, eyes wide and a little unsure. “You said…” Yosuke said, much softer now as he felt his way through what he wanted to say. “You said that us being willing to help you meant more than you could tell me. Well… I _am_ willing. I’m _really_ willing. I’m so willing that I barged into your house to yell at you about how willing I am.” Yosuke ducked his head again, too embarrassed to meet Souji’s eyes – but when he chanced a glance from under his lashes, he could see that Souji was fighting off a smile. 

Encouraged, Yosuke continued, “So… tell me. I don’t know if I can do anything. Maybe I can’t. But I really wanna try, and if that’s enough for you, then… let me try.”

Yosuke could feel the moment his words hit home with Souji, as clearly as he felt it when he landed a finishing blow on a Shadow. Souji’s eyes widened further, and then his whole face softened all at once. “It’s not exactly that I need help with anything…” Souji started, then paused. After a few moments, he sighed. “Look, let me put away the lunch things and make some tea, if we’re going to talk,” he said, picking up the beef and opening the fridge. “Would you mind waiting at the kotatsu?”

_Yes!_ Yosuke didn’t do a fist pump, but it was a close thing. He practically danced his way to the kotatsu (once he was out of Souji’s line of sight, anyway) and settled in, basking in the glow of victory.

Of course, that didn’t last long. Once the initial buzz had worn off, all of Yosuke’s usual doubts began to crowd back in, like an earworm he just couldn’t shake. Yosuke’d already used up about a year’s supply of luck just having Dojima-san be out of the house tonight; that Souji had agreed to talk was nothing short of a miracle. What made Yosuke think he could help with a problem that was too much for _Souji_? With his luck, he’d find a way to make things even worse.

By the time Souji came into the living room, holding a tray that contained a teapot and two teacups, the nervous staccato Yosuke’s fingers had been tapping on the kotatsu had morphed into a seriously nightcore version of Risette’s last single. Souji didn’t say anything about the impromptu concert – didn’t say anything at all, actually – but Yosuke whipped his hands off the kotatsu and _sat on them_ while Souji set out the tea things, pouring Yosuke’s tea with a weirdly elegant twist of his wrist.

Souji settled down across from Yosuke. Neither of them said anything for what seemed like an eternity, Souji too busy staring into his cup and Yosuke too busy trying not to stare at Souji like some sort of creeper.

In fact, Yosuke was so busy not looking at Souji that when Souji’s voice finally broke the silence, Yosuke jumped hard enough that he slammed his knee against the frame of the kotatsu. Yosuke bit his lip and held his breath until he was no longer in danger of waking Nanako-chan up just to give her a really colorful vocabulary lesson, then let himself slump forward and down until he was face-down on the kotatsu.

“Are you all right?” Souji asked, not even trying to hide his amusement, the bastard.

“I’m fine!” Yosuke choked out, sounding spectacularly unconvincing even to his own burning ears. After several failed attempts to get the kotatsu to swallow him whole, he sat up and resumed not looking at Souji – for entirely different reasons this time. “A – anyway, you were saying?” Yosuke said quickly.

“All I was saying was that it’s nothing so dramatic as you seem to be thinking,” Souji said. He still sounded like he was laughing at Yosuke a little inside, dammit, but he also sounded more relaxed than Yosuke had heard him in days, so you know what, Yosuke would take it. He’d had worse icebreakers. At least this one didn’t involve trash cans.

“My parents have always been very busy, with long hours and a lot of travel – it’s just the nature of their work,” Souji continued. “They were there for me whenever they could be, but… Well, I learned early on to be as self-sufficient as possible. It was just easier for everyone that way – if I could make my own dinner and do my homework without needing help and clean up after myself, they didn’t need to worry about me, and I…”

_Didn’t need to worry about them flaking out on me,_ Souji didn’t say, but Yosuke heard it anyway, loud and clear. Souji knew it, too, because he quickly dropped his gaze back down into his teacup. Yosuke wanted to snap at Souji to stop making excuses for them – his Shadow made it pretty clear what Souji really thought of his parents and his childhood – but… That had only been one part of Souji, after all. The rest of Souji always understood where people were coming from, which was great when you were the one who needed acceptance but not so great when you just wanted him to admit that someone had been an asshole already, and that understanding didn’t _have_ to mean forgiveness.

“It was… difficult,” Souji admitted into his teacup, after a pause. “We moved around the country constantly, and as soon as I started making friends, I’d leave them behind. It turned into something of a catch-22 – I couldn’t form bonds with anyone but my parents because they kept moving me around so much, but the fewer bonds I had, the more I wanted to hold onto them, even if it meant letting my parents keep moving me. I resented them…” Souji paused again, and his face twisted ruefully. “ _Do_ resent them,” he amended. “But I wanted to stay with them regardless. And that meant I had to become even _more_ self-sufficient, because otherwise I’d have to go stay with a relative.”

Souji glanced up from under his heavy bangs. Yosuke didn’t know what face he was making right now, but Souji grimaced, biting his lip a little. “That came out badly,” Souji said. “I didn’t mean it like _that_. Just – if I had been a high-maintenance kid, my parents would have wanted me to stay with a relative who could give me the attention I needed, and that… wasn’t what I wanted. Of course, that was another catch-22 – if I wasn’t self-sufficient, my parents felt like they needed to leave me with someone else, but because I _was_ self-sufficient, they didn’t worry so much about leaving me behind, so it happened now and then anyway. And obviously, it worked out pretty well sometimes,” Souji added, with a faint smile and a nod at the Dojimas’ living room. “But… that was all I meant. I’m not in the habit of asking for help, and I’m well aware of what an imposition it can be, even when it’s someone you care about. So… yeah. Just knowing you all are there for me any time I ask, or even if I don’t, is… It means a lot to me.”

There was a pause. Once Yosuke was fairly certain that Souji was done, he picked up his tea for the first time and took a sip as he tried to figure out the best way to put his thoughts into words – and then promptly blurted out “You know your parents suck, right?”, which was probably only the best way to put those particular thoughts into words if Yosuke wanted Souji to make him lunch tomorrow and then poison it. Whatever, Yosuke would rather have Souji poison his food than keep stewing in whatever toxic stuff he’d absorbed from his parents. At least Yosuke was pretty sure that Souji wouldn’t _actually_ kill him; he was significantly less sure that this crap wasn’t going to end up killing Souji at the rate he was going.

“My parents are good people,” Souji said sharply – defensively.

“So _what_?” Yosuke shot right back, well and truly angry now. It just _pissed him off_ , the idea of Souji taking that ridiculously big, soft heart of his and squishing it into something _travel-sized_ and _convenient_ , learning that love and support were entirely conditional… _God._ “Maybe they are! Maybe they love you more than life itself! That doesn’t mean they aren’t shitty parents. Hell, look at Dojima-san! He adores Nanako-chan, but I _know_ you know he’s a shitty parent, because – ” _your Shadow said so_ , Yosuke almost said, but that was a cheap shot, so instead he continued, “ – because otherwise you wouldn’t be here trying to be Nanako-chan’s father and mother and older brother all at once.”

Souji was silent, and Yosuke had a moment to consider how likely it was that Dojima-san actually came home early tonight and just so happened to be at the top of the stairs right now listening to every word Yosuke said – pretty darn unlikely if it were anyone else; fair to moderate chance for Yosuke, given his luck – when Souji finally said, very quietly, “Nanako reminds me so much of myself at her age… I didn’t really mean to get attached to anyone in Inaba, but even that first day, I couldn’t help thinking that I didn’t want her to…”

Souji trailed off, but once again Yosuke heard what Souji couldn’t bring himself to say – _didn’t want her to end up like me._ It went through Yosuke like one of his kunai, puncturing his anger and leaving behind only the feelings that had been too heavy to rise to the surface before – a sadness and exhaustion that sank down into Yosuke’s bones, and a bittersweet tugging that Yosuke didn’t understand and didn’t try to. “Nanako-chan would be lucky to end up being someone like you, partner,” he said instead. “But… you do know, right? That a good parent wouldn’t teach you that the best thing you can do for someone is to be easy to leave alone. A good _friend_ wouldn’t want that.”

Souji was staring down into his tea again, and Yosuke couldn’t help wondering what sort of future he might be seeing in the dregs of it. When Souji finally did look up, his expression was as hard to read as the tea must have been, and Yosuke found himself instinctively leaning forward, scanning the depths of those grey eyes as though he might see his own future in them. Souji leaned forward too, reaching out a hand and clasping Yosuke’s bicep gently. His hand was hot from the teacup, almost uncomfortably so, and Yosuke had a fleeting feeling of having been branded – that the warmth of Souji’s skin had sunk through Yosuke’s shirt, through skin and muscle and bone and somewhere deeper than that, that the next time Yosuke summoned Susano-o, everyone would be able to see the evidence burned into Susano-o’s arm –

“You _are_ a good friend, Yosuke,” Souji said, very simply. “I know I told you that I need to form bonds with people to get stronger, but… I don’t want you to think that I don’t… I really do –”

Yosuke shook his head. “I know,” he said. “Believe me, we all know how much you care about us. I mean – ” Yosuke let out a weird little bark that sounded almost nothing like a laugh – “you spent a week and a half _torturing yourself to death_ because you were so pissed we kept getting hurt for you. Even _I’m_ not insecure enough to think you secretly hate us or something.”

Yosuke held eye contact with Souji for a few more seconds before he couldn’t stand it anymore and dropped his gaze. “But… Thanks, dude.”

_You’re a good friend too_ seemed like the obvious thing to add, but Yosuke couldn’t force the words through his frozen throat. It was just such an understatement that it felt like a lie. “Good friend” didn’t begin to encompass what Souji was to Yosuke – the way Souji had upended Yosuke’s life; the way Yosuke would follow him to hell and back, would die for him and live for him; the way he commanded Yosuke’s attention; the way he made Yosuke want to be _better_ , someone who could stand by Souji’s side as his equal. Yosuke didn’t know a word that would convey a feeling like that, except…

Yosuke belatedly realized that Souji had given his arm one last comforting squeeze and was beginning to pull his hand away. Yosuke brought up his other hand and covered Souji’s before it had a chance to let go completely, pressing Souji’s hand back against his arm. “Partner,” Yosuke finished, and maybe Yosuke wasn’t the only one who heard some of the things left unsaid between them, because Souji’s answering smile was even warmer than his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Souji had, in fact, sent out a group mail saying that he wouldn’t be able to bring lunch for everyone the next day, so Yosuke was a little surprised when Souji handed him a large, fancy-looking bento box. Yosuke was also a little surprised when he opened the box and found that it contained a single package of cup ramen, but in retrospect, he really, really shouldn’t have been.
> 
> (The fact that it was actually really _good_ cup ramen was just insult to injury, honestly.)


End file.
